Clive Donner Obituary

I just learned that Clive Donner passed away on September 6, 2010. Here is his obituary and list of contributions:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/sep/07/clive-donner-obituary

A Christmas Carol

George C. Scott’s version of A Christmas Carol is considered by many to be the definitive version of Dickens’ tale. It is by far the most popular and most often shown of Donner’s three classic films produced for CBS TV’s “Read More About It” series. Carol was first shown during the Christmas season of 1984, and it was shown as an annual holiday event for at least six years afterward. And an event it was. I still have the movie I taped in 1986, complete with the holiday-themed IBM commercials that came with it. A Christmas Carol was broadcast as a CBS Special Presentation, not just a “movie of the week", and it remained so for many seasons, until sometime in the early nineties, when it fell to “movie of the week” status, with some of the lesser scenes pruned and the special commercials gone. Oliver Twist, too, was originally broadcast as rousing "Special Presentation," and was sponsored by ITT theater, but lost its “special” format the second (and I believe only) time CBS elected to rebroadcast it, with some unfortunately pruned snippets. While Carol has long ceased to be shown regularly on CBS (though you can catch at least SOME station showing it during the season), it remains a classic it is widely available on DVD in the U.S. as well as abroad. I watch this movie every year, complete with its well-worn commercials, along with other holidays favorites from the same era, The Box of Delights, and A Gift of Love: A Christmas Story.

Although it sported no cast of hundreds, or any complex, labyrinthine plot, and was published as thin volume one week before Christmas day (it sold out in short order) Dickens' original novella instantly became his most popular and celebrated classic, as it remains so to this day. Carol has an absolutely unique storyline, and simultaneously carries the classic theme of Fall and Redemption that probes deep into the collective human psyche. It is the same mythic theme which occurs throughout pagan folklore and is represented so strongly in the Christian story. Carol has been filmed countless times, both in life-action and animated form (most recently in CGI).

Compared with his previous outing as Fagin, Scott’s interpretation of Ebenezer Scrooge is tons better. With Scrooge, Scott is dealing this time with an even more complex individual, but without the troublesome anti-Semetic baggage. Scott does not hold back this time, and pours all of his vast talent into the role. Scott already has sort of a “Scroogish” cast to his face, and this only adds to his believability in this role. Scott manages to be equally believable as the flint-hearted miser at the beginning of the tale, and as the reformed man he becomes by end. Through Scott, we are able to recognize and even identify with the lonely and tormented man that Scrooge is. It is made clear that the man Scrooge is at the story's opening has been created by a tragic past. It is a lesser known fact that Dickens wrote part of himself into the character, not Scrooge the selfish, unfeeling adult, but Scrooge the sensitive child who seeks refuge in reading. A point is made of Scrooge's stern and overbearing father,whom we learn unjustly blamed young Ebenezer for his mother’s death (“she died in childbirth, his birth). Scrooge is at first resistant to change his outlook on life, but gradually through revisiting his tragically marred past, he develops second thoughts.

In the scenes that belong to the Ghost of Christmas Present, Scrooge begins to consider more than himself and begins to open up to the cares and drudgery of others. It becomes plain that he is a formerly sensitive and caring individual who has shut himself out from all human sympathy, which he neither gives nor asks for. According to Dr. Paul Davis,author of The Life and Times of Ebenezer Scrooge, Scott’s character is a man who, because of his past, “has to decided to take on the world in his own terms.” We see the formerly sensitive person, long buried beneath years of bitterness, begin to assert himself once again while Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present observe the Crachit’s meager Christmas feast. Scrooge mutters a barely audible “Amen” at the end of the family prayer. Though he quickly denies it, his obvious concern over the possible fate of Tiny Tim Crachit speaks louder than words. When the Ghost later shows him a scene of wretched Victorian underclass squalor, including a homeless family living under a bridge and forced to survive on scraps, Scrooge visibly reacts in abject horror, in particularly in light of his former words “if they would rather die, then perhaps they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population!” An even more harrowing scene occurs immediately following, when Scrooge recoils in horror at the sight of the wretched twin waifs Ignorance and Want.



By the time the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come appears, Scrooge is ready and willing to change. The Reaper-like Ghost of the Future is by far the most terrifying of any of the spirits, including Marley. The wraith-like phantom appears to represent Death, and embodies humankind’s collective fear of the future and the unknown. Little wonder Scrooge fears him most of all! Scrooge’s own future becomes well apparent to him to the end, and he is truly shaken to the depths of his soul. Metaphorically, he has descended into the depths of a Plutonian underworld (in some versions, this is more literal, with the miser experiencing the taste of a hellish afterlife). Scrooge sobs out his heart to the spirit, and though he is clearly shaken to his core from fear, the remorse over the life he has led until this moment is heart-wrenchingly genuine. “I will keep Christmas in my heart, and the spirits of all three will strive within me!” Scrooge tearfully recounts upon waking up to find himself safely back in his own room. You can practically taste the swelling joy the reformed Scrooge experiences when Christmas morning arrives. Scott manages to be almost comically jubilant as, bursting with joy, he kicks off his shoes and bounces on his bed like schoolboy.

This version remains the most faithful to Dickens’ original tale shown up until the time it was made. The only alteration that is of note at all, in fact, is Scrooge’s visit to the stock exchange, where he shows his ruthless nature as a business man, and where he encounters the two charity-workers. In the book, the two gentlemen visit Scrooge at his counting house. Scrooge does not visit the Crachit house, as he does in some versions, allowing him to give Bob Crachit the surprise of his life when he arrives late the next day.


Frank Finnly is harrowing as Marely, wrapped in ponderous chains and covered in bluish, corpse-like makeup. Edward Woodward, better known for his role as The Equalizer, is flamboyantly righteous is the Spirit of Christmas Present. Angela Plesence plays the Ghost of Christmas past as an elderly woman, though the book describes a more childlike spirit. David Warner, who had more of a reputation for acting the parts of villains at the time, fits well into the role of Bob Crachit. As young Timothy Crachit, Anthony Walters is heart-achingly feeble and pathetic. Scrooge’s nephew Fred is played by Roger Rees, famous for his role as Nicholas Nichelby, in the celebrated Royal Shakespeare Company production of that novel, which was in fact shown on ABC two years before.
The music for Carol was written by Nick Bicat, who also wrote the scores for the two other Donner productions, the rousing score for Pimpernel, and the melancholy theme for Twist. This included "God Bless Us Everyone," written by Nick and Anthony Bicat, a freshly invented Christmas carol composed specially for this production. It is a wonderful holiday number, which, as one other writer online has observed, could stand with some of the finest Victorian Carols—and that’s no mean compliment! This is not to be confused with another also very good carol with the same title, composed and performed by Andrea Bocelli for the CGI version starring Jim Carry.

One other thing--IBM came out with A Christmas Carol Christmas Book, with glossy photos from the movie, a year after the movie aired. I was hopin' they'd do an edition for the film at the time, and voila! I was annoyed at first that they charged extra for it, on account of there being so many extras in the book itself, such as Victorian holiday recipes, games and customs, along with a history of the British Christmas, including Cromwellian times, and more. But all of these are as good as they sound and very interesting, so the money my parents paid for it for my Christmas gift was well worth it. The first section is an abreviated version of Dickens' Carol, with photos from Scott's movie. The last section is Dickens' Carol in its original and complete form. The book is crammed with such goodies as a recepie for Dickens homemade punch, and details on the origianl publishing history of Carol. I still have my copy, though the jacket is worn at the edges. You can still find copies on ebay and elsewhere.

The Scarlet Pimpernel

British film director Clive Donner’s spectacular 1982 adaptation of Baroness Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel is considered by many to be by far the definitive version. I can’t argue with that. It is the most sumptuously produced of the three classic Donner directed films, the other two being Oliver Twist (1982) and A Christmas Carol (1984). While Carol is the most popular film of the three (partially of being a holiday movie, not to mention the second greatest Christmas story outside of the birth of Jesus), Pimpernel is arguably the superior of all three films. It is the also the longest, running three hours while the other two films only ran two. It was first broadcast in November of 1982 on CBS, but, sadly, I didn’t catch it until several years later.

While the basic plots of the two Dickens films are fairly well-known, I may have to recap the story of Pimpernel. The Scarlet Pimpernel novels were written by Baroness Orczy,an Austrian noblewoman around the turn of the previous century. The first novel, The Scarlet Pimpernel, was not critically a success, but proved was wildly popular. It was first adapted into a play. With the success of her first novel, Orczy wrote an entire series of Pimpernel sequels. They followed the adventures of Sir Percival Blakeney, an English baronet who rescues condemned nobles from the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror. Blakeney poses as a foppish, empty-headed fashion-obsessed dandy whom no one even vaguely suspects is the mastermind behind the rescues.


His adversary is the ruthlessly power-seeking Armand Chauvelin, chief agent of Robespierre’s National Security, who is in charge of the arrest and execution of France’s former ruling class. In the beginning, not even Percy’s wife, the beautiful actress Marguerite, suspects his true identity. The story involves Chauvelin blackmailing Marguerite into spying for him to learn the Scarlet Pimpernel’s identity. In doing so, she learns that her husband is man Chauvelin seeks, and that she has inadvertently betrayed him. Marguerite travels to France in an effort to save Percy, but ends up captured by Chauvelin. The story climaxes on the cliffs of the French coast, where Percy evades capture by posing as a despised Jew. The movie actually combines this story with one of the later novels, Eldorado, which centers around Percy’s rescue of the poor, wretched dauphin (the French Crown Prince), Louis XVII. The plot of Eldorado involves an intriguing moral setup, as it involves the Baron DeBatz, an Austrian nobleman who seeks to rescue the boy for purely political (which in this case translates into selfish) reasons, which contrasts with Sir Percy, who rescues the dauphin for reasons that are entirely altruistic.


In addition to intertwining the two tales, the movie makes a few alterations, a minor one being the change of Chauvelin’s first name from Armand to Paul. This is perhaps to avoid confusion with Marguerite’ s brother, who’s name is also Armand. Another, and far more influential change from the books is the love triangle between Percy, Marguerite, and Chauvelin. In the book, Percy and Marguerite are already married when the story opens. In the movie, Marguerite is a French actress and a Revolutionary, and partial love-interest to Chauvelin. Percy rescues her brother (from some thugs sent to punish him from wooing an aristocrat’s daughter), and eventually wins her over. As in the book, Marguerite is entirely unaware of Percy’s secret identity.

As in the book she is blackmailed into spying for Chauvelin, and too late discovers who the Pimpernel is. Unlike either book however, the movie supplies a twist ending worthy of any of the ones written by Orczy. I won’t spoil it, but there occurs near the end a scene where it looks like Percy could not possibly have survived. This is followed by the climactic sword battle between Percy and Chauvelin. The film is crammed with perils and hair-breadth escapes, some invented for the film, others lifted directly from the books.


By today’s standards, Pimpernel doesn’t quite meet the standards of prevailing political correctness. While most critics I’ve read recognize the film’s merit, some few have blasted the movie taking the side of formerly powerful and privileged aristos. I remember one who charged the film with cheering the nobles and booing the masses. Actually, that’s not accurate. The villains in Pimpernel are hardly “the masses” but the Revolutionary leaders who have become drunk on their own power. Tragic as it was, many of the victims of the Reign of Terror truly were innocents. Maximillian Robspeirre was one of the historical personas who promoted the false idea that a new era of freedom and prosperity would be ushered in once “authority” was done away with. The Communist Revolutionaries of over a century later proclaimed the same thing. Each time, tyranny merely reasserted itself in a new form. Louis XVI was actually a man who saw and favored the need for change, but who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. His son Louis Capet XVII was merely a victim; the real dauphin died of abuse and neglect in the Temple Prison. While there remained some speculation that the boy actually might have been rescued (giving rise to rumors of an actual Sir Percy or equivalent thereof), DNA evidence has now confirmed the contrary. Ditto with the Tsarevich Alexis and one of his sisters, both child-victims of Russia’s Communist revolution, whose bodies were long unaccounted for. The idea that there are no true innocents among the tribe one hates (“show me one artisto who is innocent and you can spit in my face!”)has always been part of the human condition, and, unfortunately still persists among us still.
It is true, of course, that Orczy slanted her novels, and her position as a member of the aristocracy had everything to do with this. A more thorough exploration of the insidious nature of evil is to be found in Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities, which shows monstrous acts committed by both aristocrats and obsessed revolutionaries, not to mention what is perhaps the most heroic sacrifice found in literature.


Orczy described her hero as very tall, blond and blue eyed. Anthony Andrews, who plays Sir Percy, is Hazel-eyed and doesn’t fit that description exactly. Still, it’s hard to imagine a better actor for the role. Andrews starred in a similarly heroic role earlier the same year as the title role in Ivanhoe. It seems that the last few times I’ve seen him though, it’s been as villains such as the evil Murdstone in the most recent TV version of David Copperfield, which shows his versitality.


Margarite is played by actress Jane Seymour. Seymour played numerous roles around the same time, and I’d read she’d even been slated to play Queen Marie Antoinette, in a dramatization the Revolution, with her own child as the French dauphin (“because he’s the spitting image of Louis VII”)though whether this materialized or not, I do not know. UPDATE: this movie is real; it’s called simply The French Revolution (1989). Ian McKellan, who plays Chauvelin, is an incredibly versatile actor, who has played Tsar Nicholas in HBO’s version of Rasputin (starring Allen Rickman as the mad monk), Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, Iorek Byrnison (the voice), the noble polar bear king in The Golden Compass, among a vast many others. McKellen is a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and has starred in villainous roles as Richard the Third and Macbeth. The part he plays in Pimpernel also bears some resemblance to these Shakespearean villains, a ruthless power-seeker willing to eliminate anyone who he identifies as a rival or obstacle to his goals. McKellen is excellent in his portrayal of power-seeking disguised as social concern.

The dauphin Louis-Charles Capet is played by the “Oliver Twist” boy himself, Richard Charles, and Eleanor David, who played Oliver’s aunt in that same production, plays Louise Longe, Armand St. Just’s love interest.

NOTE: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I beleive the following observation is true. In none of the Pimpernel novels authored by Orczy (at least, the ones I've read), does Sir Percy ever utter his famous catch-prhase "Sink me!" (a corruption of "Think me!"). There was one Pimpernel story where the line "Sink me!" did occur, but it was a Pimernel pastiche written after the 1982 movie! Similar to the known fact that Sherlock Holmes never says, "Elementary, my dear Watson!" in any of the original Holmes stories written by Conan Doyle.


LINKS:






http://www.erasofelegance.com/entertainment/movies/scarlet/scarlet.html

http://pargoletta.livejournal.com/75310.html

http://www.blakeneymanor.com/index1.html

Oliver Twist

The 1982 TV version of Oliver Twist, is, as far I’ve ever been concerned, the only version. It was the first I’d ever seen. In fact, I’d never heard of the story at all before. Well, not quite exactly. I had seen an ad in TV guide for the Filmation cartoon version that something of “Charles Dickens tale of a young orphan in the clutches of thieves.” I’d heard of virtually nothing by Dickens, save for Christmas Carol. Then I read of this version as a young prê-teen in an issue of Scholastic Scope, and saw the movie. Since I was severely bullied by both peers and teachers at the time, the main character was someone I could relate to. But Oliver Twist managed to be virtuous and selfless in a very dark world, something I could never have managed at the time. The face of the ash-blond wey-faced waif on the cover of the Scope and in the TV guide appeared at once anguished, starving, wretched and wise far beyond his meager years. Those huge haunting eyes went straight into my soul.

The TV guide ad proclaimed “George C. Scott stars in Oliver Twist.” I’d never even heard of George C. Scott either. I wondered if the kid on the front was George C. Scott, or if George C. Scott was the name of an adult actor.

British film director Clive Donner had originally worked on David Lean’s far more famous version. In 1982, he got to helm his own version of Dickens’ classic, and then went on to film George C. Scott once again in his version of A Christmas Carol. At the time, CBS television had a “Read More About It” series of classics going, which included Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities , Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, among many others. The three Donner-directed productions in this fine series were Oliver Twist (1982), The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982), and A Christmas Carol (1984). Some of the same actors re-occurred in these films, Richard Charles and Eleanor David in Twist and in Pimpernel, Scott in Twist and Carol. The latter two films won critical acclaim, Carol being by far the most popular. Of these three, Twist was the least popular and the least celebrated. In general, this is deserved, as it is arguably the weakest of the three films.

That is hardly to say it is a poor version of Dickens’ classic. Far from it—as Oliver Twist versions go, I would certainly count it among the best. The fact is, however, that it could have been the definitive version to date, but cannot be considered as such, given the measly two-hour time slot, and being hampered by political correctness. The latter centers almost entirely around George C. Scott’s Fagin. Most Twist productions, I’ve noticed, are judged mostly in relation to the actor who plays Fagin, the Jewish leader of the gang of young thieves. It’s almost ironic how David Lean’s version, starring Alec Guinness as Fagin, is generally considered definitive, and other versions are generally held up to it as a standard, and yet every version that I know has taken pains to make Fagin far less evil than in the book. Though John O’ Conner in his New York Times movie review, blasted him for “sanitizing “ Fagin, George C. Scott’ s watered-down performance is hardly alone in that regard. Fagin’s character was arguably anti-Semitic from the start; it was not lacking in controversy even in when the story first appeared as a serial. When Oliver first encounters Fagin in his lair, he is depicted as “a shriveled old Jew” with a mass of red hair, and toasting sausages over a fire with a fork, a vision of almost Satanic significance. In the later book edition, Dickens pruned many of the references to Fagin as “the Jew.” Alec Guiness’s performance, was, if anything, an even grosser caricature than the way Dickens originally wrote Fagin. But the fact is, his take on the character is more in keeping with Dickens than any of the latter versions.

George Scott actually had a great opportunity with Fagin, which was largely squandered. His more sympathetic take on the character, a seeming attempt to explore what is probably the most complex characters in the story is actually a good thing; it simply isn’t balanced enough. Fagin is never the terrifying presence he often is throughout the book. Oliver and the other characters are never threatened by him. He merely seems like a kindly old gentleman who was been forced by circumstances alone to life of crime, even (unsuccessfully) trying to prevent Nancy’s murder in the end. We do, however, see Fagin do evil; he (reluctantly) takes up Monks on his offer of 500 pounds to have Sikes murder Oliver, though Nancy’s presence prevents him from following through. Fagin, it seems, will at least consider doing anything so long as the price is right. He remains conscience-ridden throughout however, and at the end, seems to exihibit some genuine care for Oliver’s future as way of penance for his past sins, which is true to what Dickens wrote. All this is fine, save for the fact that we never that Fagin has any truly monstrous side. He does in the book of course, and there is even a scene following Oliver’s recapture where he viciously thrashes Oliver until Nancy intervenes. Scott’s infamous rage would have worked well for such a scene, but the filmmakers doubtless were reluctant to depict a Semitic character in so grim a light.

They had no such reservations about Tim Curry’s Bill Sikes. While some have objected that Sikes should have been more hulking and bullying, he is undoubtedly by far the most loathsome character in the film, just as in the original. Curry, no stranger to depicting evil characters (Dr. Frank N. Furter in the Rocky Horror Picture Show, the Satanic Darkness,in Ridley Scott’s Legend)told an interview for Scope magazine that he “made Sikes sort of a madman.” And it shows. Sikes appears to be virtually demented by a lifetime of villainy and alcohol adiction. It is mystery indeed why Nancy remains so loyal to him, though according to Curry, he has “some flashes of humor about him,” which might account for some of Nancy's initial attraction. We see Sikes threaten nine-year-old Oliver with his pistol.

One online poster on Curry’s website opined that “the scene where Sikes seizes Oliver by the throat and throws him against a wall (before the burglary) is pretty grim,” and that although he usually wants Curry’s character to escape his seemingly inevitable demise “this time I didn’t.” By far the most disturbing of the scenes with Sikes is Nancy’s murder; in most versions, this scene takes place off screen or behind closed doors. In this one, the scene is long and actually protracted. While in Dickens original it was bloody and excruciatingly graphic, here it seems even more extreme, with Nancy dizzy, dazed blinded, and pleading heartbreakingly for her life. The first time I saw this movie I actually skipped this scene. The second time, when a friend saw it with me, he remarked that he felt like beating the ****out of Sikes at that point and has severely disturbed. The fact that Sikes eventually gets his comeupance—another “gross scene” -- hardly compensated. Whether it’s good that this scene was done like this I’m not sure. I doubt it, really; this film was once shown on the Disney Channel (in the days when Disney actually showed movies and not endless teenage drek), and they had viewers of all ages exposed to this extreme violence. The thing is, even though this scene is very true to Dickens, much of the rest of the novel has been left out entirely. So why go overboard on this one highly disturbing scene?


I always fast-forward then it comes to this. But the scene is instructive for at least one reason: Nancy performs the most heroic sacrifice in the story. True, she does not foresee that she will be murdered; but she takes a huge chance nonetheless to save Oliver’s life. Let us hope that heaven does wait for those who would sacrifice their own life for others.



As for the story itself, it has both ends cut off it to make it fit, much like David Lynch’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune. Most of the problem with Oliver Twist has not so much to do with what is on-screen but what has been left out entirely. In this, however, it is not much different from other large and small screen versions, most of which eliminate at least as much. The Lean version, although praised as definitive, also runs two hour length, and departs equally from its source material. It totally eliminates Oliver’s aunt, the burglary at Maylies, and recasts Brownlow as Oliver’s grandfather. The 1982 version, in a move that appears to be virtually unique among Twist adaptations, goes the opposite route, and proceeds straight to the burglary, without having Oliver first rescued by Brownlow and later recaptured by the thieves. Doing so eliminates some potentially moving and memorable incidents from the novel.



For example, Mr. Fang, the corrupt magistrate who tries to sentence Oliver does appear in this version (he is scene swilling sherry and obviously drunk) when he sentences Dodger to Australia. But this appearance so brief, it is almost wasted. The drunken magistrate would have been truly seen as evil and monstrous if they included the scene where pathetic little Oliver is dragged before him.

On the other hand, I like the idea of Rose as Brownlow’s niece, and living together on the same estate out on the windswept moors, and Oliver remaining under the care of both of them. This move did manage to eliminate Mr. Grimwig, undoubtedly the most annoying character in the book, and the one character I thought to be entirely without merit. But what I consider the greatest improvement over Dickens’ original (and no, I don’t consider Dickens, as a classic author, to be above criticism), is the scene where Oliver asks for more gruel. In the novel, he is essentially forced into the act, as kids draw straws and lot falls to Oliver Twist. Screenwriter James Goldman opted instead to have Oliver takes it entirely upon himself to take up a bowl for another starving youngster. In the book, Oliver is entirely a passive figure, save for the one time he trashes the bully Noah Claypool for insulting his dead mother (that scene is done to good effect here, with Oliver laying into his tormentor like an avenging angel). In this version, Oliver is afforded a shining moment of selfless heroism. The scene is very moving, with the starved child tremblingly making his way past rows of his staring peers. The scene ends of course, with Bumble tossing Oliver and his equally starved companion into a dark cellar. This starts the twisted chain of events which eventually causes ruin to Bumble and his wife; never underestimate the power of virtue. This scene demonstrates that quality splendidly. Another thing that makes this scene noteworthy is that this version (uniquely, as far as I am aware) includes Oliver Twist’s workhouse companion, Dick Swubble (okay, his name might NOT be Swubble, the name under “S” on Bumble’s self-made list—it might have been Unwin, Vilkins, or something else. But who’s to say I’m wrong?) Goldman makes Dick the orphan whom Oliver makes his sacrifice, and whom we saw fainting from starvation in an earlier scene. He is truly pathetic in the book, described by Dickens as having limbs so thin and wasted as having the appearance of an old man. Though the movie does not bring this out, in the book Oliver’s rescuers plan to save Dick from the workhouse and adopt him as well. It doesn’t matter to them that Dick, unlike Oliver, isn’t a relative. But they find to their horror that Dick has died from starvation, a terrible, heartwrenching incident.

Oliver Twist was broadcast on CBS TV, on March 23, 1982, sponsored by ITT Theater. It was reshown as theatrical release in Britain the following year for the Royal Charity Foundation. The critical reaction to this version has been somewhat mixed, with (it seems) reviewers on the other side of the Atlantic being the less kind. From what I’ve read, some British critics commented on how version visually bore the stamp of American television. One critic referred to Oliver as “a mute, blond, blue-eyed puppet is never shown to undergo any kind of suffering whatsoever.” This is a grossly unfair and inaccurate assessment to say the least. Oliver definitely suffers and greatly, even breaking down and sobbing at one point. The fact that Richard Charles was a new and virtually unknown actor only adds to the film’s credulity. Whenever onscreen he is a virtuous, long suffering, starved orphan. He is Oliver Twist. You never once doubt it. The part the main character in this story may be a relatively undemanding role for a beginning, though talented, child actor. That said, this version’s Oliver is entirely convincing; Scott’s Fagin sorely lacks by comparison. Not that there could have been some good scnes which were never filmed, such as the time Oliver breaks down and expresses heartfelt remorse after visiting Fagin in prison, or pours out his heartfelt gratitude to the Maylies following his rescue, or his anguish when he is recaptured by the thieves. That reviewer, by the way, also mentioned that in Dickens original novel, “Brownlow’s aristocratic concern is based on his nieces romantic frustrations” which may sound sophisticated, but begs the questions as to whether he’s ever actually read Dickens’ original novel, since Dickens never established any familial relation between Brownlow and Rose.
In short, Oliver Twist is a good adaptation of Dickens’ novel which had the potential to be great, even definitive. What they really needed was a three hour extended version, or even a mini-series to allow actors like Scott and Charles to push their acting skills to their fullest potential.

NOTE: Oliver Twist has long been available on VHS, and more recently, on DVD in the UK, and some overseas markets. As it is far less popular with viewers than Pimpernel and Carol, partly because it just wasn’t as good, though mostly, I suspect, because it’s a much darker story than either, it had only one very brief release here in the U. S. This was a VHS release sometime in the mid-nineties. It was far from an ideal package. From some entirely unknown and baffling reason, the entire scene of Oliver asking for more and then going before the Board was excised. The film skips inexplicably from a flirtatious moment between Bumble and Mann to the middle of the coffin-maker sequence. This has led some viewers to conclude that this scene was never filmed for this version. NOT TRUE! Also, the blurb on the back reads like it was written by someone who never saw it or even read the book. It sounds more like the synopsis for Great Expectations! Why they elected to cut the heart out of the movie begs the question of why they bothered releasing it in the first place. The fact that even this version is no longer released (small wonder), and it has never appeared on TV for years that I’m aware, make it a ripe time to demand the release of entire on DVD in the US. There is currently an all-region Taiwanese release of the film in a deluxe package, which is quite good, which I have recently purchased. However, one that included any additional or deleted scenes would be better. At least one such scene must exist, as I’ve seen photos in Scope, and on back cover the Hungarian release showing Oliver, Rose, Brownlow and Mrs. Bedwin (the maid) out on the lawn of their estate—a scene absent from the film as we know it.


NOTE: Timothy West, who is excellent here as the gross and hypocritical Mr. Bumble, also played the part of Dickens’ own father in a PBS documentary on the life of the famous author. Phillip Davis, the actor who plays the bullying Noah Claypool, also played Joe Gargery in the 80s PBS adaption of Great Expectations which starred Graham McGrath as the young Pip. Lysette Anthony, who played Agnes Fleming, Oliver’s mother, also starred in 1982’s Ivanhoe as Lady Rowena.


Here is a page I found in Russian of a a review specifically of this film. It talks abou the role of Oliver in the film, and his noble character, unlike other reviews which larely focus on Scott's Fagin. The translation into English is somewhat difficult to read, but it's easy to get the gist of the article, even if you can't read Russiian:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://www.camera.minori.it/pdf/oliver_3.pdf&ei=sAveTImHO4eknAeIpenDDw&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CB0Q7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Doliver%2Btwist%2B%2522ricahrd%2Bcharles%2522%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26rlz%3D1G1GGLQ_ENUS321%26prmd%3Do